I really like the Wordpress community. Yeah, this update came too early but for me, only a couple plugins did not work properly. I also added a new theme after upgrading to 2.8 so I had little problems with it.
In my opinion, I think the WP developers are making too many changes between releases these days. You get used to one admin interface and next thing you know, they changed it again. They need to start listening to the community more before making major changes but they must be under a lot of pressure from their investors. Oh wait, did I just say the "i" word???
Jeffro
· 6 months ago
While the administration interface was redesigned for WordPress 2.5 and then redesigned again for 2.7, I think it proves that the WordPress team is adapt at making changes until they find something that works. WordPress 2.7 is such a huge improvement over 2.5 in terms of usability and just plain getting things done that I'm tickled pink they changed the design from what it was in 2.5. 2.5 was awful and the community left them know.
I can understand your frustration with not liking change, but WordPress is a continously evolving piece of software in a world where everything around them on the web is equally as evolving. I'd rather they change things until they find something that works, then to stick with something that doesn't.
As for listening to the community, the last time I checked, there were a few polls conducted asking the community for imput on features and priority of those features. Once the results were in, the majority of them were followed up and acted upon. That seems like listening to me.
Last but not least, investors have nothing to do with WordPress.org.
DD32
· 6 months ago
I think the number of features is always going to increase between versions.
Every release there are more and more people who are pro-activly coding within the WordPress community, The number of patches being submitted just keeps on growing.
Sorry, But to say "Ok, Lets only do 3 new features" is not really possible, Sure, If the Core Devs were the only ones implementing these things - sure, But thats not the case.
Contributors contribute new functionality. Each core dev has what they'd like to contribute to the release.
I will contribute what i want each version (well.. in reality, when i feel like it), I dont really care what Westi, Mark or Ryan are doing.. Developers work independently, and test eachothers work of course..
Keep in mind, That the majority of contributors to WordPress are not paid for it, They're doing it for what they love.
Ryan
· 6 months ago
What specific problems are you referring to?
I haven't seen any bugs with the latest version. Even the pre-beta trunk installs seem to work fine for me.
The widget system definitely has less bugs than the previous one. I'm surprised you are actually criticizing that side of the new release actually as the new system seems infinitely better than the old one to me.
Automattic is not the ones to jump in and save the day here, it is the WordPress software project that needs to fix whatever problems you are seeing. Version 8.1 beta is due out any day now, so hopefully that will fix the problems you are experiencing.
I heard recently that there have been a shortage of beta testers for 2.8 and that may have led to a few more problems than normal so it is apparently likely that the RC stage will be lengthened and more people encouraged to upgrade to the RC before release to ensure that the software is fully tested before launch.
I'm not certain, but I'd suspect 99.9% of problems experienced by users are either due to server configuration issues or shonkily coded themes/plugins. It's not the fault of WP if a plugin or theme is not coded correctly.
James Morrison
· 6 months ago
It's fair to say that the WP 2.8 update caused a headache for me, I assumed everything would continue to function normally and had to reload my site with a backup whilst fixes were put in place.
But to be fair, if a plugin says compatible to 2.7.1 and hasn't been tested in 2.8 it might not work. Same goes for themes.
Best advice - have a "mirror" of your current site on the same server (so the configuration is exactly the same) and test before upgrading the live site.
And always remember to backup *before* attempting any updates - you'd be suprised how many of my clients didn't have a backup of the current comtent and relied on WP-DB-Backup...
Chip Bennett
· 6 months ago
I'm not one to hold punches when I believe they are warranted, but the criticism here is way off base.
I had absolutely *no* problems upgrading from 2.7.1 to 2.8. Everything worked out of the box, even with the almost 30 active plugins I'm using. My theme also emerged unscathed from the upgrade.
It is in no way the responsibility of WP core developers to ensure that every plugin, widget, and theme works from upgrade to upgrade. Rather, it is the sole responsibility of the developers of those plugins, widgets, and themes to test their code with the Beta/RC releases to ensure that they are compatible.
Before you complain about insufficient testing: did *you* beta/RC test? If you didn't test the beta/RC with your specific setup (server, plugins, widgets, themes), then you have no ground upon which to complain about insufficient testing.
Justin Tadlock
· 6 months ago
Do you really think that every single person who uses WordPress should beta test every release before upgrading?
Yes.
It IS [WordPress's] responsibility to ensure that their latest release doesn't screw up everyone elses install.
It IS every single person's responsibility to ensure that WordPress will work with their setup (PHP, MySQL, themes, plugins, etc.) before upgrading.
Mike Johnston
· 6 months ago
I respectfully disagree Justin. Just like any other cms or platform, we expect the supplier to provide suitable products.
I didn't say people should not test their releases before upgrading but i did say they should not be required to beta test before upgrading. Also, keep in mind that people on WordPress.com are simply upgraded without option.
It is both WordPress and Automattics responsibility.. to say otherwise is simply wrong and would indicate that Automattic has no tie-in to either one.. which is also incorrect.
Otto
· 6 months ago
There's always bugs. There is always going to be bugs. However, with the 2.8 release, there's only really 4 bugs that need to be addressed. Heck, I can even enumerate them for you:
1) Failed upgrade can cause file deletion. Very rare, only happened in specific cases, but it's a critical problem, which is why 2.8.1 is being pushed so fast.
2) get_categories changed a bit. This is corrected in 2.8.1, and most people didn't have the issue. Only very unusual themes caused it to be an issue.
3) The new timezone functionality was less than optimized, causing out-of-memory errors on some servers, on one particular admin page. These have been re-examined and improved dramically for 2.8.1.
4) The new javascript compression and concatenation functionality causes problems for some people and servers. This results in all sorts of odd behavior, like people claiming that widgets don't drag and that the edit box doesn't work, and so forth. It's a relatively rare case, but one easily corrected with one line of code in the wp-config file on sites that have the issue. An even better fix is to activate the "Use Google Libraries" plugin, which not only eliminates the problem, but causes a site speedup by getting most of the javascript from Google. Also, 2.8.1 has some compatibility enhancements to reduce this issue.
My point is that there's really not a lot of issues here, when you get right down to it. The last one of them causes a lot of user interface glitches if you happen to have it (as one would expect when javascript stops working), but it can be caused by lots of things, and incompatible plugins can be one of those things as well. Not really fair to blame WP for third-party software issues. Nor is it really fair to treat a single bug (javascript not loading) as a dozen different problems (text editor failure, widgets won't drag, dragging dashboard doesn't work, etc) when they all stem from one issue.
Really, I would expect your review to be more in depth. If there's a problem, then explain the problem. Look through the support channels. Find out the underlying cause. Simply saying that "it's disabling a ton of sites and causing a myriad of problems" is unfair, because a) it's simply not true, as evidenced by the 1 million downloads of 2.8 already and b) four is not equal to "a ton".
A little more fairness in reporting, eh?
Mike Johnston
· 6 months ago
Otto - As I stated earlier, I disagree.. and this wasn't a review.. it was an article stating a fact.. there are too many issues. If you disagree, google wordpress 2.8 issues or check their forums.
I appreciate everyone jumping to their defense but I still stand by the statement that it was released to soon with too many issues.
Thanks for your comments, however.
Jacob Santos
· 6 months ago
I develop an application for Windows, on the next release, it stops working. Whose fault is it?
I develop an application for Mac OS X, on the next point release, it stops working. Whose fault is it?
I develop a plugin or theme for Drupal, on its next release, it stops working. Whose fault is it?
So on and so on.
Platforms are in a constant state of improvement and changes. Just look at Windows, Mac OS X, Drupal, phpBB, etc. The difference between a paid platform (Windows, Mac OS X, etc) and an free, open source platform is the amount of testers and users.
It also depends on whether the system is closed or open. For systems where they work on a limited set of hardware or configurations or the users are only going to be using a limited set of hardware or configurations, then the amount and scope of the bugs are going to be different.
It also depends on your users and their complacency. Users of the other CMSs are going to be more technical users and know how to get around problems. The users for WordPress are in often cases, novices. Therefore to compare a system that is meant to be used with the lowest common denominator verses something that requires you to be this tall to ride is not really being fair.
As others have said, bugs are found in all systems and platforms. They are an constant that will continue unless you are the guy who writes the "hello world" examples. More beyond that adds complexity and complexity adds bugs. The more users you add, the more fringe case bugs and user case bugs you are going to find.
However, more often then not, you find the fringe case bugs after a "stable" release where as the normal use case bugs are found during the normal beta / RC cycle.
Bryce Ellis
· 6 months ago
I learned a few years ago to never upgrade to the latest WP version until it's proven to be stable. A few years back I upgraded 15-20 blogs hosted on my server and the upgrade had a bug that allowed mass hacking of WP blogs. Well, I had all my backups. others weren't so lucky.
All Comments
http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpr...
In my opinion, I think the WP developers are making too many changes between releases these days. You get used to one admin interface and next thing you know, they changed it again. They need to start listening to the community more before making major changes but they must be under a lot of pressure from their investors. Oh wait, did I just say the "i" word???
I can understand your frustration with not liking change, but WordPress is a continously evolving piece of software in a world where everything around them on the web is equally as evolving. I'd rather they change things until they find something that works, then to stick with something that doesn't.
As for listening to the community, the last time I checked, there were a few polls conducted asking the community for imput on features and priority of those features. Once the results were in, the majority of them were followed up and acted upon. That seems like listening to me.
Last but not least, investors have nothing to do with WordPress.org.
Every release there are more and more people who are pro-activly coding within the WordPress community, The number of patches being submitted just keeps on growing.
Sorry, But to say "Ok, Lets only do 3 new features" is not really possible, Sure, If the Core Devs were the only ones implementing these things - sure, But thats not the case.
Contributors contribute new functionality. Each core dev has what they'd like to contribute to the release.
I will contribute what i want each version (well.. in reality, when i feel like it), I dont really care what Westi, Mark or Ryan are doing.. Developers work independently, and test eachothers work of course..
Keep in mind, That the majority of contributors to WordPress are not paid for it, They're doing it for what they love.
I haven't seen any bugs with the latest version. Even the pre-beta trunk installs seem to work fine for me.
The widget system definitely has less bugs than the previous one. I'm surprised you are actually criticizing that side of the new release actually as the new system seems infinitely better than the old one to me.
Automattic is not the ones to jump in and save the day here, it is the WordPress software project that needs to fix whatever problems you are seeing. Version 8.1 beta is due out any day now, so hopefully that will fix the problems you are experiencing.
I heard recently that there have been a shortage of beta testers for 2.8 and that may have led to a few more problems than normal so it is apparently likely that the RC stage will be lengthened and more people encouraged to upgrade to the RC before release to ensure that the software is fully tested before launch.
I'm not certain, but I'd suspect 99.9% of problems experienced by users are either due to server configuration issues or shonkily coded themes/plugins. It's not the fault of WP if a plugin or theme is not coded correctly.
But to be fair, if a plugin says compatible to 2.7.1 and hasn't been tested in 2.8 it might not work. Same goes for themes.
Best advice - have a "mirror" of your current site on the same server (so the configuration is exactly the same) and test before upgrading the live site.
And always remember to backup *before* attempting any updates - you'd be suprised how many of my clients didn't have a backup of the current comtent and relied on WP-DB-Backup...
I had absolutely *no* problems upgrading from 2.7.1 to 2.8. Everything worked out of the box, even with the almost 30 active plugins I'm using. My theme also emerged unscathed from the upgrade.
It is in no way the responsibility of WP core developers to ensure that every plugin, widget, and theme works from upgrade to upgrade. Rather, it is the sole responsibility of the developers of those plugins, widgets, and themes to test their code with the Beta/RC releases to ensure that they are compatible.
Before you complain about insufficient testing: did *you* beta/RC test? If you didn't test the beta/RC with your specific setup (server, plugins, widgets, themes), then you have no ground upon which to complain about insufficient testing.
Yes.
It IS every single person's responsibility to ensure that WordPress will work with their setup (PHP, MySQL, themes, plugins, etc.) before upgrading.
I didn't say people should not test their releases before upgrading but i did say they should not be required to beta test before upgrading. Also, keep in mind that people on WordPress.com are simply upgraded without option.
It is both WordPress and Automattics responsibility.. to say otherwise is simply wrong and would indicate that Automattic has no tie-in to either one.. which is also incorrect.
1) Failed upgrade can cause file deletion. Very rare, only happened in specific cases, but it's a critical problem, which is why 2.8.1 is being pushed so fast.
2) get_categories changed a bit. This is corrected in 2.8.1, and most people didn't have the issue. Only very unusual themes caused it to be an issue.
3) The new timezone functionality was less than optimized, causing out-of-memory errors on some servers, on one particular admin page. These have been re-examined and improved dramically for 2.8.1.
4) The new javascript compression and concatenation functionality causes problems for some people and servers. This results in all sorts of odd behavior, like people claiming that widgets don't drag and that the edit box doesn't work, and so forth. It's a relatively rare case, but one easily corrected with one line of code in the wp-config file on sites that have the issue. An even better fix is to activate the "Use Google Libraries" plugin, which not only eliminates the problem, but causes a site speedup by getting most of the javascript from Google. Also, 2.8.1 has some compatibility enhancements to reduce this issue.
My point is that there's really not a lot of issues here, when you get right down to it. The last one of them causes a lot of user interface glitches if you happen to have it (as one would expect when javascript stops working), but it can be caused by lots of things, and incompatible plugins can be one of those things as well. Not really fair to blame WP for third-party software issues. Nor is it really fair to treat a single bug (javascript not loading) as a dozen different problems (text editor failure, widgets won't drag, dragging dashboard doesn't work, etc) when they all stem from one issue.
Really, I would expect your review to be more in depth. If there's a problem, then explain the problem. Look through the support channels. Find out the underlying cause. Simply saying that "it's disabling a ton of sites and causing a myriad of problems" is unfair, because a) it's simply not true, as evidenced by the 1 million downloads of 2.8 already and b) four is not equal to "a ton".
A little more fairness in reporting, eh?
I appreciate everyone jumping to their defense but I still stand by the statement that it was released to soon with too many issues.
Thanks for your comments, however.
I develop an application for Mac OS X, on the next point release, it stops working. Whose fault is it?
I develop a plugin or theme for Drupal, on its next release, it stops working. Whose fault is it?
So on and so on.
Platforms are in a constant state of improvement and changes. Just look at Windows, Mac OS X, Drupal, phpBB, etc. The difference between a paid platform (Windows, Mac OS X, etc) and an free, open source platform is the amount of testers and users.
It also depends on whether the system is closed or open. For systems where they work on a limited set of hardware or configurations or the users are only going to be using a limited set of hardware or configurations, then the amount and scope of the bugs are going to be different.
It also depends on your users and their complacency. Users of the other CMSs are going to be more technical users and know how to get around problems. The users for WordPress are in often cases, novices. Therefore to compare a system that is meant to be used with the lowest common denominator verses something that requires you to be this tall to ride is not really being fair.
As others have said, bugs are found in all systems and platforms. They are an constant that will continue unless you are the guy who writes the "hello world" examples. More beyond that adds complexity and complexity adds bugs. The more users you add, the more fringe case bugs and user case bugs you are going to find.
However, more often then not, you find the fringe case bugs after a "stable" release where as the normal use case bugs are found during the normal beta / RC cycle.